Peggy's Girl
by seriousish
Summary: Angie is nervous about her next audition. She needs Mistress Peggy to show her how to control herself.
1. Chapter 1

Outside, the rain lashed at the tiny automat like it was Noah's Ark. Inside, Angie was appropriately dramatic for the latter, not the former.

"Peggy, please, I _need _it!" Angie pleaded. Put her palms together and everything, like Peggy was one of her mother's saints.

"Because otherwise you won't get the part?" Peggy reiterated sourly.

"Yes!"

A sigh. "Angie, you and only you are responsible for whether or not you get the part. Your talent, your confidence, and your preparation. You have all my support, but I—"

"Then do the thing! C'mon, English… I need all the help I can get. Not getting any younger, you know."

Peggy barely held in a sigh. After the war, she'd felt a million years old. Angie was, in comparison, a pup that'd just finished being house-trained. "I shouldn't have done it with you in the first place, Ang. That's the truth. I know you wanted to research your role, but you didn't even get the part. And yet—"

"Because we liked it! We both did!"

"You cried," Peggy reminded her pointedly.

"I'm a girl! I like crying! Why do you think I've read Little Women four times, for my health?" Now showing no sign of being a waitress, Angie threw herself into the booth, across from Peggy. "Please, English. Please. I just know if you don't help me, I'll blow it. But after we do the thing, I will be so calm and so on point, I'll get the part for sure! I'll… I'll bet you! Five bucks says you do this and I will get that gosh-darn part."

"Well, if there's five dollars on the line… no, I shan't bet against you."

"I'll lose out on a lot more money not getting the part than I would losing a bet."

"Oh, so I'm robbing you now?"

"Miss, can I get some coffee over here?" someone asked.

Angie whirled to face him. "As soon as my friend here starts being a good friend and agrees to help her friend out!"

Periodically, Peggy had to roll her eyes. It was becoming as much a defense mechanism with Angie as it was with Howard. The two had far too much in common. Peggy would have to make sure they never met.

"Angie." She lowered her voice seriously. "The last time, you got hurt."

"And I knew that going in, and I healed, and I liked it, all of it, so don't you go thinking you're some corrupting monster out of a dimestore pulp and I'm an innocent young maiden who just needs the love of a good man." Angie lowered her voice hurriedly. "I need this and I need you, and you know that if you were asking for this or for anything else, I would be giving it to you already."

Peggy looked at her, unwilling to relinquish her seriousness no matter how charmingly Angie smiled at her. "Promise me that if you think it's too much for you, or if anything else seems amiss or uncomfortable, that you will tell me immediately."

"Of course."

"I won't be disappointed. I will not think any less of you. I just have to know so I can… so things can be done properly."

"_I know. _That's how we did it last time, after all, and that worked out fine."

"Yes, well." Now Peggy looked at her coffee. "I thought you'd be smart enough to be scared off."

"Oh no, not me." Angie moved in quick to tap Peggy on the nose. "Dumb as a box of hammers, that's me."

"Miss, my coffee—"

"_Urrrggghhh." _Angie marched over to him with a hot pot. "Like you ever tip me anyway—"

The geezer scrutinized her as she poured for him. "What are you two gals cooking up, anyway?"

"Carter's going to help me run lines, that's all. I'm an actress. I need to practice staying in character."

* * *

"When was the last time you were spanked?" Peggy demanded, her crisp British accent low, but leaving no doubt she expected to be answered.

Angie bit her lip. She was suddenly aware of the taste of her gloss, her lipstick. Peggy would be tasting it soon. "When I was a kid. And even then, not unless I really had it coming. My parents were pretty big softies, ya know." _Not like you._

Peggy nodded absently, as if Angie's answer made no difference to her, but had nonetheless confirmed some private hypothesis. She was sitting in Angie's wicker chair, making it look like a throne with her legs crossed and a tumbler of scotch in one hand. She'd told Angie to buy it for her, though the bottle cost Angie most of her tips for that work-day, and her with a ten hour shift to cover for Roxy…

"Do you think you're a talented actress?"

Angie nodded, smiling, she loved this question. "Oh yeah, in my school plays, I made people cry like babies. Not just my parents. Old men, like."

"And do you believe you deserve to be on Broadway?"

"Yeah. Of course." Angie went slower now. A bit nervous, because she knew how Peggy could be. You didn't go up on a roller coaster without leaving your stomach at the top. And Angie was pretty attached to her stomach. "I was born for it. I can sing and dance and, and you know how good an actress I am, English, c'mon…"

"You're not an actress." Peggy aimed a long, deadly finger at her and Angie couldn't help but remember the feel of one of those inside her. Feeling so good it nearly hurt. "You're _aspiring. _That means you've accomplished _nothing, _you've proven _nothing, _you are an _unknown quantity. _And yet you're talented. And yet you belong on Broadway."

"Peggy, c'mon, I thought you were just gonna tie me up some…"

Peggy straightened her legs, leaned forward in her seat. Angie thought of her standing up and walking to her; a keen stab of fear ran through her. Fear of how much she wanted it. "I decide what we're going to do. That's the whole point. I _asked _if you wanted to be held and kissed and had sweet nothings whispered into your ear. You said _no. _You wanted _this. _You wanted _me. _If you speak out of turn again, you won't be able to walk right for a week." Her smile was still Peggy's, but not any Peggy Angie knew. "Much less dance."

She sipped her bourbon. Angie felt funny inside, like the drink was going to her head instead of Peggy's. Peggy never spoke to her like this. Even the other time, when Angie had first asked, Peggy hadn't talked.

Just kinda… growled.

And usually she did talk. Sweet nothings, like she'd said. Always telling Angie how pretty she was and how good she felt and how good she tasted ('Nah, English, you're the one that tastes good. You give British cooking a good name!'). And Angie liked that, who wouldn't? But she needed _this._

"You're mine," Peggy continued, staring at the ice tumbling about in her drink before turning the full force of her gaze on Angie. "You said you wanted to be mine, I've taken you, _you are mine. _And as your mistress, I must attribute your failure thus far to _you. You _failing, _you _not working hard enough, _you _being unprepared."

Angie opened her mouth to say it wasn't true, but remembered that Peggy had warned her about speaking out of turn. She closed her mouth again and Peggy gave a nod.

"And yet, you're _mine._" The word slunk out of Peggy. It was a thief, headed right for Angie. "Do you know what I do when something of mine doesn't work properly?"

"What, Peggy?"

"I fix it." Peggy stood. She drained her glass. "Strip now."

Angie shook as she did so. At first just her fingers trembling, struggling with buttons and zippers and nylons, then her whole body was quivering. It was ridiculous. She'd been naked with Peggy before. It wasn't anything she hadn't seen. But the way Peggy was looking at her…

"I can't stop shaking," she said, then looked quickly to Peggy to see if she'd displeased her.

Peggy took a step toward her. "Why?" she asked, the lilt of the word demanding an answer.

"Because of how—how you're looking at me." Angie tried a grin. "It feels different."

"You can look at people and see different things." Peggy didn't so much walk as uncoil, a long leg tracing forward across the carpet, setting its weight, drawing Angie's mistress closer, the inferno of her stare closer. "I can see my friend. My neighbor. My lover. And I can see other things, no less valid, that I normally turn a blind eye to."

Angie had to open her mouth a few times to speak. She didn't want to speak out of turn, disobey the rules, not when she'd tried so hard to get Peggy playing to begin with. But Peggy wanted her to speak. That scared her the most. A good scare, like a Lon Chaney Jr. picture. "What do you see now?"

Peggy held up the empty glass. Angie could see her face in its contours. "I see a slut. I see what she needs to be satisfied. I see what I can do to fulfill those needs." The glass was lowered and all Angie could see was Peggy. "The reason you're trembling is because there's nothing a slut loves more than to be used. And I know just how to use you."

Weakly, Angie covered her breasts with her hands. Or just held them. "Would you?" A helpless smile flickered on her face. "I'd like that, Peg. I'd like it a whole lot."

Peggy pressed the cold glass against Angie's belly, birthing a moan that Angie couldn't figure out how to let go. "You haven't earned it. Where do you keep your scripts?"

"In the nightstand," Angie breathed. "But the latest one is on the kitchen table—"

"I don't care about the latest one. We're not dealing with that now. Right now, we're punishing you for the failure of your last audition. Fetch me the script for that play."

Angie did. She felt the cold weight of Peggy's gaze on her ass, remembered the fast burn of Peggy's hand striking it from last time. It hadn't been a spanking, not quite, but Peggy had eaten her out and she'd done it ignoring her breasts, her face, her hips, all the usual places her hands toured as she showed Angie the way to orgasm.

Instead, she'd hauled Angie's lower body over and smacked her bottom, never letting Angie enjoy her tongue too much. But when it was time for her to come, it'd been so intense. Like fireworks. And yeah, sure, maybe it was always like fireworks with Peggy, but there were fireworks and then there was the Chinese New Year. Cripes, how had she managed to walk back to her own room after that?

Angie came back with the script held in front of her groin, not sure if she was ready for Peggy to be looking there yet, with those eyes that burned so cold, that saw exactly how Angie could handle of pleasure and of pain. Peggy took the script from her. Her eyes traced up Angie's body after.

Angie felt so naked. She tried not to shake.

"You memorized it?"

"Only… only the scene I auditioned for."

"What role?"

"Juliet, of course. Swing for the bleachers, right?"

"Only when you're playing ball," Peggy replied curtly. "What scene did you audition?"

"Act 4, scene 1."

"Do you remember your lines?"

"I didn't get the part, Peg."

"Then I hope you have a very good memory indeed, because how you perform right now will determine the severity of your punishment. I'll be Paris. You be Juliet."

"Okay. Okay." Angie continued silently. _I can do this, I can make Peggy happy, I can be her good girl…_

"Happily met, my lady and my wife," Peggy said, her voice almost back to normal, but not when coupled with her eyes. She was behind Angie now, staring at her ass again, and Angie knew she was thinking. Thinking of what that ass would look like after she was done with it.

Angie closed her eyes. She would do anything for Peggy. She could remember a few lines from a few weeks ago.

And it was like her body generated them, responded to Peggy's presence with them, like it did her quivering, her arousal. "That may be, sir, when I may be a wife."

"That 'may be' must be, love, on Thursday next."

"What must be should be."

Peggy lowered the script. "Shall be."

"What?"

"You got it wrong. It's 'shall be'. Climb onto the bed. Put your hands against the headboard.

Peggy rolled up the script into a cylinder. Angie tried smiling at her. "Yes, mistress." It didn't get her anything. She wasn't sure she wanted it to.

She crawled onto the mattress, her knees throwing the carefully folded sheets into disarray, and put her hands on the headboard.

"Do not take your hands off the headboard."

"I won't, mistress, I promise I won't."

The first blow caught her right across the buttocks, Angie crying out and pulling hard against her own grip on the headboard to free herself from the sudden pain. But she wouldn't let herself move her hands. She wouldn't let Peggy down. Peggy would never let her down.

Again and again the rolled-up script paddled her ass. Peggy didn't stop until tears were rolling down her pretty face. Then the script paused. The end of it scraped over Angie's lower back as Peggy considered her. Looking at her in the way that could only feel good when it was Peggy. Only Peggy got to look at her like Angie was hers, because she was hers. All hers…

The script unfurled. "Come you to make confession to this father?" Peggy asked, once more in character.

"To answer that, I should confess to you."

The pain lingered, seeming even stronger without additional blows to numb her to what was already there. It burnt into her flesh and sizzled in her cunt, but only because it was Peggy that had done it.

"Do not deny to him that you love me."

Because she was Peggy's, but she was Peggy's slut, and Peggy knew just how to use her. "I will confess to you that I love you."

Peggy tutted. "'That I love him.'"

Angie gave a nervous laugh. "I love you, Peggy."

"Do you think this is a game?" Angie started to turn. "Keep your hands on the goddamn headboard. I didn't give you permission to move one goddamn inch."

Angie bowed her head. Thrust her ass out. Peggy rolled the script back up.

This time, Angie had no problem keeping her hands on the headboard. She didn't try to escape the paddling. She wasn't trying to avoid more pain. Only to satisfy the raging needs inside her. The need for Peggy, the need to come, it all seemed to melt into one boiling mass inside her—

Then the script stopped. Unrolled. It seemed far too short a spanking for the mistake Angie had made, for disappointing her mistress, but perhaps Peggy was forgiving of a mistake made out of love. Angie closed her eyes and centered herself, trying to ignore the hot tears dripping off her jaw. She wished there were more of them, a fresh batch to mark her submission to Peggy.

"I will confess to you that I love him," Angie said.

"So will ye, I am sure, that you love me."

"If I do so, it will be of more price, Being spoke behind your back, than to your face."

Peggy came around the bed, the script held at her side, flapping in her hand. She wiped at Angie's face with gentle fingers. "Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears."

"The tears have got small victory by that; For it was bad enough before their spite."

Having cleaned Angie's face, Peggy put her fingers at Angie's mouth. Angie cleaned Peggy's fingers of her own tears, sucking gently as Peggy continued. "Thou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report."

The fingers drew away, wet with Angie's saliva, to let her speak. "That is no slander, sir, which is a truth; And what I spake, I spake it to my face."

Peggy's hand withdrew from Angie's face. It crested her head, it ran through her hair, it trailed along her supine back, her spine, like Peggy was touring her property. "Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it." The hand came around her hips, it went under Angie's legs. Fingers pressed against Angie's slit. It was wet. It'd been wet for as long as Peggy had been looking at her.

Angie shifted in desire, as far as she could with her hands locked to the headboard. She pressed herself against those soft, warm, wonderful fingers. She moaned.

"Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it," Peggy repeated.

Angie searched her mind for the next line, but there was nothing. Her gaze went misty once more, new tears in her eyes. She didn't feel bad about being punished; she deserved it. But oh, why'd she have to let down Peggy? And right after Peggy had decided to reward her…

Peggy struck her ass with renewed vigor, but the blows stopped even faster than before. Peggy knew just how to bring Angie to the edge of release, in so many ways, but then drew back, tipping Angie over into pain instead of pleasure.

When Angie felt Peggy's hand on her ass, caressing her punished flesh, it felt like an angel. She wanted more, so much more, but the script crashed against her ass again. Peggy thrashed wildly against the headboard, moaning and groaning, smelling her own sweat and her own arousal. It was dripping down her thighs. She would sleep on it tonight, a wet spot in her sheets…

"It may be so, for it is not mine own!" Angie shouted, not caring if Mrs. Fry heard, not caring if everyone heard. She didn't know if she wanted for Peggy to stop or go on, to keep being punished or to be rewarded, she just wanted Peggy to be happy with her, Peggy to keep her, Peggy to be hers like she was Peggy's. "Are you at leisure, holy father, now; Or shall I come to you at evening mass?"

Peggy stopped paddling Angie. The pain was terrible, but so was the pleasure. Angie could remember Peggy's fingers in her sex so strongly it was like she was still there; feel the sensation of pain so hot that she could think of nothing else. Only the next line. It would make Peggy happy.

"The next line is the Friar's," Peggy started, her voice allowing no pleasure at Angie's success. "What is it?"

"My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now. My lord, we must entreat the time alone."

Peggy put her hand on Angie's right, still clawing into the headboard. She gave it a squeeze, then took it off the wood. She had to pry Angie's fingers loose. "God shield I should disturb devotion! Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye: Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss."

Peggy brought the hand down, carried it for her lover to between Angie's thighs. As soon as it was touched to her need, Angie's hand moved with a will of its own. She stroked herself. She made herself feel good. For Peggy. For Peggy to see.

As Angie did to herself what she knew Peggy wanted her to do, Peggy's hand alighted on her ass again. Stroked the tender flesh. Made the lingering heat bloom. Angie's fingers flew inside her pussy as Peggy groped her ass.

"Now I want you to count each stroke I give you," Peggy said, her voice warmer somehow, more favoring. It was like rain in the desert. "So I know you'll remember this lesson."

Angie was so hot that she didn't think she could keep an accurate count, but she still nodded frantically. No one would do right by Peggy like her, no one would be as good a friend, as good a gal, as she was to English.

As she counted off every stroke Peggy delivered to her ass, Angie barely recognized her own voice. Not with the burning pain in it, or the incredible pleasure it spoke off. And Angie didn't care how hard it was to concentrate. She didn't lose count, she didn't stop playing with herself like Peggy wanted to see.

She needed the pleasure to keep from going out of her mind with the pain, and she needed the pain to remind her she was Peggy's.

When she reached a hundred, Peggy stopped. Angie only felt pleasure, her hand a blur on her slick clit, but she felt lost. Not Peggy's. That was the one thing she really hated, the one thing she didn't like on _any_ level—but then she felt Peggy's finger on her asshole.

"This is mine too," Peggy said, and penetrated her as easily as she would walk through the front door of her own home.

Angie came, harder than she ever had in her life, her cunt all clit and wetness and electricity and fingers, pelvis bucking hard against where her hand was lost inside herself. She was part of Peggy. Peggy was part of her.

"You can let go of the headboard now," a voice said, and Angie slumped down onto the mattress, still jerking in orgasm, drained of every reserve, of all discipline, of any sense she had dissatisfied Peggy. All that was left was her mistress. Her Peggy.

Angie had started crying about the sixtieth time Peggy had spanked her, just tears streaming down her face, but now that it was over, they'd become sobs. And Angie tried to explain to Peggy it wasn't her, she was good, so good, it was Angie's job and the auditions and waiting by the phone for nothing and thinking it was her last day at the automat fifty times because she'd nailed that last audition, she'd nailed it, and having her ass pinched and slapped and eyed until she felt like a piece of meat in a waitressing costume, and only Peggy was allowed to do that, only Peg…

Peggy shushed her. Held her. Stroked her hair and her back and her face and kissed her and whispered in her ear, sweet little nothings, just like before. Poetry, Angie realized, when she'd stopped crying and she could hear Peggy beyond just the sweet music of her voice. Peggy was reciting some whackadoo English poetry to her.

There was a box of tissues on Angie's nightstand. The first thing Peggy had done, sweeping through the room, had been to put that and a waste basket beside the bed. Now Angie got it—Peggy took a tissue, held it to Angie's nose, had her blow. Into the waste basket. Another tissue to clean her tears away. Into the waste basket. And Angie really couldn't feel the pain anymore, even if she knew a bruise would rise on her ass like nothing else the next day. She was numb, though. Tranquilized on Peggy.

Addicted to her.

"Now," Peggy said, "feel up to going over those lines again?"

"I'd rather do the Taming of the Shrew. That's my next audition." Angie tucked herself against Peggy, knowing Peg wouldn't let her go. "Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself, To make a bondmaid and a slave of me. That I disdain. But for these other gauds, Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself, Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat, Or what you will command me will I do, So well I know my duty to my elders."

Peggy laughed. Kissed the top of Angie's head. "Very good. I have a good feeling about this, Ang. I think you're really going to get it this time."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Peggy kissed her Angie again. "And then I'm going to reward you."

Angie felt warm inside. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

So warm…


	2. Chapter 2

Peggy had broken into high-security HYDRA compounds. A closed-door audition was no major problem.

From the shadows, she watched as Angie ran her dialogue, preened and postured to display her effervescent look, all but showed her teeth like a horse at auction. They ran her through her paces, the Broadway men—expecting her to perform a three-hour show, matinee and evening, however many days of a week they needed. But Peggy recognized stern stuff in others as much as herself. In another world, Angie could crawl under barbed wire and sling a rifle with the best of them. Here, she could manage showtunes.

There were three directors. Two of them had enthusiastic reactions, but the last counseled his fellows to be calm. They told Angie they would get back to her. The first two were hearty about her chances; the third was hung-up on another audition who the other two were not nearly as sold on. He insisted, though, and whatever the pecking order, he seemed to have final say. He mollified them with a promise to sleep on it, but from the set of his spine as they left, Peggy knew he had no intention of changing his mind.

She thought it called for investigation.

* * *

Peggy twisted his arm nearly to the breaking point. "Did you think I wouldn't find out? Two hours of work, while I was bored with nothing better to do, _that's all it took_! The talent agency sends aspiring young actresses to whore for you, so you'll take their more established clients, no matter their suitability for the role!"

He tried to protest. Peggy twisted his arm _to _the breaking point. "I'll be having a conversation with them as well. _You _will cease this arrangement immediately. If you want sex, you can either prevail upon your wife for it or find someone who hasn't been manipulated into offering it! Otherwise, you'll bloody well settle for your right hand, _assuming I don't break it off!"_

He whimpered in abject surrender. Peggy eased the pressure, just a little. "Now. In a world where you _didn't _enter into this despicable arrangement, who would you have cast in the part?"

He said a name. Peggy smiled.

"Call her."

* * *

"I got the part!" Angie screamed. Peggy expected Angie to run to her for a hug, but Angie didn't run anywhere in particular. Just scrambled about the apartment like a headless chicken, waving the blouse she'd been ironing around like it was a winning lottery ticket. "I got it! I got it!"

Finally, from nearly bowling Peggy over, she realized there was someone around to hear her cries. She threw herself in an embrace with Peggy, though the blouse she was holding slapped Peggy in the face. "Thank you, _thank you!"_

"Me? I didn't have anything to do with it. What an odd suggestion!"

"For helping me, dunce-hat! I never would've gotten it if you hadn't taught me to be all cool and _collected—" _Angie swaggered around in imitation of Peggy, bending her elbows out from her waist in a way that had Peggy immediately thinking _I do not do that! _"You are the best friend a gal could ask for! The best Lesbian a gal could ask for! Jiminy Christmas, I'm so glad I've got you all to myself!"

She hugged Peggy again, this time from the rear, and Peggy barely minded how hard Angie was manhandling her about with her embrace. Angie rained kisses on her cheek, tickled her, practically ravished her with affection. Until somehow they found their way to the bed, Peggy thrown down on it, Angie crashing down on her with a real kiss, and Peggy thought she might quite like being ravished.

"But, don't get me wrong," Angie said, rearing up with a queer expression on her face. "My big break is nice and all, but what's really important is that now I get your reward."

"My reward?"

"Uh-huh." Angie's tongue poked at the inside of her cheek. "I mean, I got so jammed up when you were punishing me, I can't imagine what you'll do for the velvet glove treatment!"

"I do believe I 'reward' you on a near-nightly basis. Although I am glad to hear it compares so favorably to you having a gainful employment."

Angie smiled ruefully. "C'mon, Peg. You're telling me you don't have nothing planned?"

"I… have some small ideas… for a special occasion."

"What could be more special than this? You gonna go back to Germany and make the Krauts say uncle all over again?"

Peggy blinked. She realized, yet again, that Angie would do anything for her. Absolutely anything for her. It was something of an awesome fact. As well as quite stimulating.

"Go to the icebox," Peggy said. "Fetch a cucumber."

Angie bit her lip. "You mean…?"

"If the woman of the hour is open to it—so to speak."

"It's been a long while since I had a guy, English. But I imagine anything he does with a prong, you'd do much better!"

"Who said anything about me?" Peggy smiled in that way she knew was just somewhat intimidating. "We're going to be doing this together."


	3. Chapter 3

"Geez, Peggy, geez—you sure don't mess around!"

Angie tried to play it off with a laugh, but Peggy silenced her with a kiss. She wouldn't let Angie be anywhere but here, with her, experiencing the pleasure Peggy wanted her to feel. "I certainly don't."

Angie felt even more naked with Peggy dressed, still in her sleek professional suit, still wearing her red fedora even. And her without a stitch on. With the feel of her stockings still on her skin as had she peeled them off, Peggy watching every inch they traveled to make sure not a trace was left behind. Dear God. Dear Lord, she had nothing left to take off. Not a single thing she hadn't shown Peggy, wouldn't show her.

She sat on the bed and looked down at the cucumber and laughed again. She couldn't help it. Just when she felt all vulnerable and goosy, she saw that cucumber and wondered if it would miss being a goulash. She was glad Peggy didn't have a real dildo, like the one an old girlfriend of Angie's had used. It might've been too intimidating. The cucumber was just ridiculous enough to Angie to be comfortable with. She smiled even as Peggy fixed her with a nasty look.

"So glad you're amused, Ms. Martinelli. Reach down. Open yourself up to me."

Angie wasn't sure what she meant until Peggy's eyes dropped leadingly to her sex. Then, lip bitten, Angie brought her hands into her lap. Reached down, felt her labia—it seemed to sizzle at the touch—and spread the lips of her pussy. Peggy watched the pinkness glisten inside her.

"Good girl," Peggy said in a high, imperial voice that made Angie glisten just a little brighter. "Keep that open for me. I'll be using it momentarily."

"Why not use it right now?" Angie asked. She meant it teasingly, but there was a note of desperation in her voice. The outlandish suggestion of a cucumber put her at ease, but she was still knotted up with herself, eager for Peggy's reward. The longer she waited, the more she _wanted._

"Because I haven't yet had my fill of those eminently kissable lips," Peggy teased right back, taking Angie's chin in her strong fingers, red nails angling Angie's mouth up to meet hers. "And later, you'll need them to scream how much you love me."

"I could scream right now," Angie breathed just as Peggy kissed her.

It seemed impossible to kiss Peggy when she was so domineering, like holding red-hot magma in her mouth, Peggy's tongue scorching and sizzling, turning Angie's teeth and gums and tongue into moans she had to let out. Only for Peggy to bottle them up with her fierce possession of Angie's mouth, make them grow louder and thicker and hotter until they burned, growling, deep in Angie's chest. In her stomach. Lower…

"Oh!" Angie said shrilly, feeling herself clench like her body was expecting, _demanding _Peggy's fingers. Usually when Peggy kissed her like that, it was when they were right in the middle of it—not just starting. "I'm ready, English. I think I'm really ready…"

Peggy bit Angie's lip as she pulled away, tugging on it like she wanted to keep Angie in her mouth forever. But she forced herself back, shaking her head with all her discipline, and offered Angie a smile that started shaky but soon turned steely as ever.

"Well then. I will defer to the lady's opinion. Hold yourself open, Angie. It won't fit, otherwise."

Peggy didn't just put it in. Oh no. She started by rubbing its cold tip on Angie's knee. Slowly, so slowly, she started it up Angie's leg. Angie could _feel _just how big it was by how much of it was touching her flesh. She'd do anything for Peggy, but it was so much to take, even for her mistress.

"Look at it, Angie." Peggy's voice was like ice in winter, the kind that was so cold it burnt you. She was all calm and collected, but her words set Angie on fire. "Look at what we're going to do. It's not me doing this to you. It's you letting me. Because whatever I do, I will never do anything that you don't want me to do. And you want this. Don't you?"

"I want you," Angie said. Voice thin and reedy. "I want you to do it to me."

"You want to help me do it to you."

Angie squeezed her eyes shut in need. "Oh yes, oh please, oh yes…"

Angie set her jaw, humming in need, in nervousness, in anticipation and eagerness and fright and trust. It was so big. But it was Peggy. Not only could she not imagine Peggy ever hurting her, but she couldn't imagine Peggy doing something to her that wouldn't make her feel… worshipped.

Whether Peggy did it with pain or with pleasure, Angie always ended up feeling transported beyond either, beyond all sensation, to a place that made her feel—she would never admit it out loud—like she'd been brought into contact with Peggy Carter's soul.

Angie beamed a little. Knowing it was coming. Her reward from the goddess that had chosen to worship her.

But instead, she felt Peggy's soft thumb caress her lips, ease over her cheek. Her eyes blinked open, wondering at the delay—just in time to close again as Peggy kissed her once more. Not the volcanic eruption of before, but slow and sweet, full of love but also need, like Peggy wanted to imbibe some of the affection and warmth that overflowed from Angie at all hours.

"When you're being brave," Peggy said, though she paused the sentence with a kiss rather than a comma, "but you're so nervous," another kiss that only made Angie more impatient, because it wasn't _where she needed Peggy, _"and so eager at the same time," Angie didn't know how the cucumber would feel better than this, but she knew it would, "it is just _adorable."_

"Peg, put it in!" Angie begged as Peggy kissed her cheek so hard, she left a lipstick imprint that would stay there the rest of the night—Peggy's name on her trophy. "I'm dying, English, c'mon!"

Peggy grabbed Angie firmly, kissed her once more, slowly, precisely, _softly. _"The urgency is adorable too. You may just be the cutest girl in Brooklyn."

"Yeah? Think I'm cute enough to find a girlfriend who won't torture me with waiting?" Angie pouted.

Peggy lost herself in a smile. "Definitely. But—I could take her in a fight."

Then Peggy locked eyes with Angie. She pressed the cucumber forward, guiding it unerringly against Angie, into her, inside her, never looking, her eyes never leaving Angie's as the girl's flustered expression turned to surprise, turned to concern, fulfillment, satisfaction—lips pinched together, nostrils flaring, eyes rolling back in her head as it went in and in and in—then, Peggy didn't think she could stop even if she wanted to.

She guided the cucumber in and out of Angie, always finding her spot but never pushing too far, too hard, too fast. And Angie moaned and arched her back and almost couldn't bear to look at Peggy when she was so pretty, such an angel doing so many things to her, she thought she'd die if she felt so beautiful and looked at something so beautiful in the same instant. But she kept her hands at her sex. She kept holding it open for Peggy.

"Good girl," Peggy purred, and her voice was _definitely _too much for Angie. She felt herself dying, deep in her guts. Deep down between her legs, she was going to heaven. "And _that's _why you deserve a reward."

"Love you, Peggy, need you, love you, love being your girlfriend—"

Peggy slapped her hand on Angie's thigh, held her in place as she went harder and faster, wishing she could touch herself, rut against Angie's perfect body like a dog in heat, but this was Angie's reward, not hers, and all she would let herself be concerned about was Angie's pleasure.

She deserved to be punished anyway, denied, after all the lies she'd told Angie, the danger she'd put her in, the times she'd been a bad friend and a bad lover and worried Angie to death because of a promise she'd made to Steve, swearing at his grave that he could rest in peace because she would pick up where he left off, do the work he would've done if he had stayed. But she knew too that he wouldn't want her to be alone, he'd want her with someone like Angie, and he must've called in a favor from God to let Peggy meet a lover who could take all of her, the sweetness and the kindness and the compassion, but also the violence, the hurt, the punishment.

As her lover quaked and moaned and needed and was satisfied, Peggy brought her lips to Angie's ear. Let her words flow inside Angie like a blood transfusion to a dying man. "I love you too, Angie. Feel how much I love you."

Angie bit her lip so hard, she barely let out a peep. Just a sigh, after, like steam from a broken valve, and Peggy was embracing her, stroking her, rubbing the warmth back into her body after it had all rushed to her cunt. Angie kept sighing, kept moaning, and Peggy slowly started to kiss her, to whisper to her. But it wasn't until Angie was strong enough to wrap her own arms around Peggy that her lover truly relaxed.

Angie had bitten her lip so hard, she'd drawn blood. As they cradled each other, Peggy sucked it clean in a long kiss that never seemed to end.


	4. Chapter 4

"I wish I were a boy," Angie said, apropos of nothing.

Peggy left her eyes shut. She was used to Angie going off on tangents, especially late at night, when all the coffee Angie drank caught up with her and left her half-dreaming. Sometimes, Peggy expected, she talked in her sleep and Peggy never even noticed. "If you were a boy, _that _would've been much harder to manage."

"Oh, believe you me, I'm _very _grateful to have my lady parts when you're around. But if I were a boy, I could marry you."

"You can still marry me."

"Where? Back home in Britain? Cuz they still have kings and knights there, I don't think they're that advanced."

Peggy suppressed a smile. "A marriage is just two people's hearts, not a piece of paper. If you mean the words, then it's a real marriage. If you don't, then it's not."

She popped an eye open to see Angie staring at her with the most lovelorn expression since Peggy's childhood pug had set up station under the table, awaiting scraps like an orphan out of Dickens.

"Peggy Carter," Angie said. "Will you marry me?"

"I've been yours since the day we met. About time you realized it."

Angie sat up. "We should have wedding rings. Not _wedding ring-_wedding rings, but, I don't know…"

Peggy got up. As Angie came up, kneeling on the mattress to watch, she swept over to her jewelry box. The two silver rings inside were not likely to be mistaken for wedding bands, but if that's what they said they were, then it's what they were.

She returned to Angie, taking her hand, placing the first ring on her middle finger instead of the other one. The look they shared told her Angie understood. Only they would know what it meant, but there were the only ones who had to.

"I, Margaret Beatrix Carter, do avow before God and the only person in my life that I truly love, that I will always care for her, always protect her, and always love her. Not as much as I do this moment, but more and more every day. I promise to love you more, even when you drive me mad, even when we're sick, even when we're apart—even if, somehow, we find a worse rathole than this place to live in."

Angie squeezed her hand around her new ring finger and its neighbors, as if she were trying to grind the ring permanently into place. "English… write that down, please, I don't wanna forget it."

"In a moment. Isn't there something you'd like to say to me?"

"Oh!"

"I think a simple 'I do' would suffice. Or a kiss, you don't have to say anything—"

"Peggy Carter!" Angie virtually bellowed, shuffling on her knees closer to Peggy. "I, Angela Dorotea Martinelli, do solemnly swear to cook for you and clean for you and do anything you need, ever, because I love you and I want you to be happy, so much, oh, that's not good, can I start over?"

"It's fine—"

"I do solemnly swear to look after you just like you look out for me, and take care of you just like you take care of me, and be a good friend just like you're a good friend. I know you're perfect and everything, and maybe I ain't, but I'm going to be perfect for you. Oh, and you can have front-row tickets to all my shows, forever, I don't care if I have to buy them myself…"

"That's very thoughtful."

"Oh, shit, that wasn't good either. The first part was good, I think the ticket stuff brought it down. Can we strike that from the record?"

"Consider it stricken." Peggy dropped the other ring into her hand. "Care to do the honors?"

Smiling so wide it seemed she'd break something before she stopped, Angie slipped the ring onto Peggy's middle finger. Kissed her. Didn't stop. Except to say—

"Beatrix? Really?"

"_Dorotea?"_

"No wonder we don't like men. They gave us such crap names."

"Shush, darling. You'll spoil the honeymoon."

After that, all was silent, save for the occasional moan and a whispered "oh, _Beatrix" _that never failed to result in a hail of playful slaps and amused laughter.

* * *

Dottie loved being neighbors with Angie. Not only could she hear them easily with a glass pressed to the wall, but with a little periscope along the ledge outside the window, she could see them.

She had fervently enjoyed watching Angie being rewarded for her stellar audition, but it had been their wedding vows that actually made her come. Now Dottie simply rubbed at herself as they continued to consummate the union, knowing it would take more than just watching them for her to experience such pleasure again.

She would need Angie Martinelli.


	5. Chapter 5

"You are the one who worked with Captain America, yes?" Dr. Ivchenko asked as Peggy set his lunch down on the table—one of the unfortunate hallmarks of her undercover work at the SSR. Complaining about being delegated with cold-cuts could rouse suspicion. Playing the dutiful Gal Friday at least kept her in the building.

Planting a bottle of Coca-Cola on the table, Peggy tried not to wonder whether it was a good thing that she no longer winced at his name. Maybe it was that Captain America wasn't his name. Just an ad campaign with Steve, her Steve, as its spokesman. "That's right."

"That must've been quite interesting," Ivchenko said. "Working alongside such a man."

"It had its moments. If that's all?"

"Oh. I apologize—I see the subject makes you uncomfortable."

"Not uncomfortable. Merely… private." Peggy twisted to the door.

"Yes. A commonality among your field of work, I think. It is a pity that so often, keeping a thing private allows me to fester."

Peggy turned her head almost to her shoulder. "He was a good man. He died, as very many do in war. It does no honor to their memory to keep dredging them up like ghosts."

Ivchenko rubbed at his ring. A nervous tic. The noise it made was almost familiar. "But still, it must be reassuring, enlightening, to have known such a man. To be able to draw on his courage. I often think of my father, my professors at university, as an example in my own life. I can't imagine Captain Rogers would be any less to you. Can you still remember what he looked like, or is he well and truly buried?"

"I can remember everything about him," Peggy said, her own frankness startling her. Thinking of him, she could almost see Steve. His strong jaw. His golden hair. The way his steely gaze melted when it settled on her. "I think about him quite often, actually."

"In unguarded moments?"

"Yes. As I fall asleep. When I wake up and he's not there."

"That must be hard for you. Painful." Ivchenko turned his ring like he was tuning a radio dial. "But satisfying, in a way. Like picking at a scab. If only you could think of him without also thinking of his demise. Let us try that now. Think of him in life, not in death. Put all thoughts of his end out from your mind. Be with him, in your mind, as you were in life."

"Peggy…"

He was there. As tall and proud and strong as she remembered him. As she _didn't _remember him, because she'd forgotten just how powerful he was, how pure, how you could just feel it in your bones when he was around.

"Steve." She didn't know she could still cry like this, like a little girl, the tears just rushing to her eyes and filling them, her not able to fight them at all. "Steve, you're alive. You came back."

"I couldn't leave my best girl. Not when she owes me a dance."

She had so many questions, but only one that mattered. "Can you stay?"

"As long as you'll have me. I just need you to do me a favor."

"Anything. Anything."

"I need you to write something down for me."

Ivchenko handed her a pen.


	6. Chapter 6

It was official. Angie's pot roast was a disaster. Aw, hell, who ever told her she could cook? _Ya think just because you're a housewife now you know your way around a kitchen?_

Housewife. Angie knew it wasn't legal, not by a long shot, but she sure felt married. Maybe the ring was on the wrong finger, but it was cinched tight all the same, telling her that this was Peggy's finger, on Peggy's body, and she was Peggy's girl.

Now she just had to figure out a way to convince her wife they should eat out.

_You could always try lingerie, _her scumbag brain suggested. _Dang, I'm funny._

Knock at the door, a woman's repetitive chime. Angie went to answer it, tamping down her enthusiasm. Couldn't be Peggy. Didn't knock; she had a key. She opened the door and there was Dottie instead, giving a rueful look. Instantly, Angie wondered what it took to wipe the grin off that woman's face. Had the Reds invaded?

"Dot! What's up? Soviets invading?"

Dottie's scowl flickered. "It's, uh—it's Peggy. She wanted me to give you this."

Angie did not like Dottie's tone. Not one bit. She pushed past Dottie—was that a letter she'd been carrying?—and crossed the hall to Peggy's room. The drawers were open, empty, a few things missing, the kind of things Angie knew she'd miss. What, had she been robbed?

"She's not here," Dottie said apologetically, knitting her hands together. "She left."

"What? What are you talking about? Where? She didn't say anything about finding a new apartment?" _Cripes, even if they were married, wasn't it a little soon for them to move out to the suburbs?_

Dottie held out the letter. Angie took it, though her fingers weren't cooperating, fumbling and crinkling the papers as she ripped the envelope open. Finally got it, though she put a tear in the letter itself. She pulled it free and looked and saw.

_Dear Angie,_

_I'm sorry. I don't know why I am this way. It's disgusting and it's unfair to you. I guess entering into some grotesque parody of a marriage with you was me hitting rock bottom. I'm just sorry I dragged you down with me. I never meant to seduce or corrupt you, it just happened. I think I should leave now. I'm too far gone to find normal enjoyment in life, but it's not too late for you. Please, find help before_

Angie pulled the letter away from her face like it was trying to suffocate her. "She didn't write this!"

Dottie's brow knitted with concern. "That's not her handwriting?"

"No! I mean, yes, it is, but she wouldn't write these things!"

"She also asked me to give you this," Dottie held up her hand.

In the palm was a little silver ring, just the size of Peggy's finger.

"I guess it's something of yours she didn't feel right taking?"

Angie snatched it from her, shoving it into her pocket. "It's hers! I'm just keeping it for her—I don't know how she lost it—she'll want it back! And she didn't write that letter! It must be a forgery! It's got to be!"

"Why?" Dottie asked, and Angie couldn't resist as she peeled the letter away from her. She didn't want to hold onto it anyway. "Oh. It's like that."

Angie found new strength somewhere. "It is!" she insisted. "It is like that! And it's not disgusting or a parody, she wouldn't say those things, _why would she say those things?"_

Dottie reached out and put her hand on Angie's shoulder and Angie didn't know a hand could feel so good, that she could need a touch so bad. "Some people just go like that sometimes. They can't… well, they get scared. It's not your fault. I just can't believe she would do it this way. Behind your back. In a letter. Not giving you a chance to say goodbye."

"I don't wanna say goodbye! She's not leaving!" Angie knew how childish she sounded and didn't care. She felt like throwing a temper tantrum, screaming until someone, somewhere, brought Peggy to her. And together they'd tear up that stupid letter and never think of it again.

"Angie, calm down." Dottie petted Angie's shoulder, soothing her all the way into a hug. Dottie smelled like Peggy. The same brand of perfume. And her clothes were the same fabric. If Angie closed her eyes, she could almost think that the space between her arms was full of Peggy. "It's not your fault, now. It's psychology. Leaving like this, she's given you a case of separation anxiety."

"Uh-huh." Angie nodded. "That's why Peggy wouldn't leave! She wouldn't want to give me separation anxiety!"

"You don't have any closure. That's why you're reacting so, well—so poorly. I want you to _calm down, _Angie. I want you to take a deep breath. Close your eyes. Imagine I'm Peggy."

"I—she—"

"Deep breaths, Angie." Dottie's hand petted through Angie's hair. She affected a British accent that was so convincing—especially when Angie wanted it to be. "Don't fret, dear. It's me. I'm Peggy Carter."

Fresh tears soaked Angie's eyes. She felt it sinking in. Peggy gone, hating her, hating herself and hating what they'd shared, tainting every memory they had with the knowledge that Peggy now looked back at it with disgust.

She'd do anything not to face that. She held onto Dottie and willed herself to believe it was Peggy. Her Peggy.

"I got so scared you'd left," Angie sobbed, not letting herself think. Just feeling. Dottie felt so much like Peggy, and smelled so much like Peggy, and sounded so much like Peggy…

"I wouldn't leave you. Not my wife. Not ever. Because who am I?"

Angie bit her lip. "You're Peggy Carter."

"Who am I?" Dottie asked with lips that scratched against Angie's cheek like they were trying to get in.

"Peggy Carter."

"Who am I?" Dottie asked with lips that finally found Angie's mouth.

Angie answered by kissing back.

Suddenly they were on the bed. Dottie was stripping Angie's clothes away, all of them, and Angie wanted them off as bad as she did. She wanted fresh air on her skin, not the cloth that carried Peggy's words in them, that had felt the chill that went through her body as she held Peggy's wedding ring in her hand.

Angie felt something wide and cool press to her cunt. She looked down and saw a cucumber in Dottie's hand. She didn't care, didn't need to know where it had come from. It was something Peggy would've done. Her Peggy, not the imposter who had taken over, shed her ring, fired that letter like a bullet into Angie's heart. She spread her legs.

Dottie plunged the cucumber in and out, watching Angie's sex swallow it, accept it, never hesitating in the slightest. Her glee was palpable. "Say my name, Angie. What's my name?"

"Peggy!" Angie moaned, and her asshole twitched rhythmically with what was being done to her womanhood, another surrender to Dottie, who fingered the throbbing pucker, got the tip of her finger in, had the rest sucked inside. "Don't stop, Peggy!" Angie's eyes were tightly shut, squeezing out tears. "Please don't stop!"

"Of course I won't stop. I love you," Dottie said as she went faster, Angie's surrender deepening. She would accept whatever Dottie did to her, because it was Peggy doing it to her. _Agent Peggy Carter, _Dottie thought.

She leaned in, whispering Peggy's accent right into Angie's ear. "I, Margaret Beatrix Carter, do avow before God and the only person in my life that I truly love, that I will always care for her, always protect her, and always love her." Angie squirmed, her ass churning, her breasts heaving. "Not as much as I do this moment, but more and more every day." Angie groaned—begging—needing. "I promise to love you more, even when you drive me mad, even when we're sick, even when we're apart." Dottie fucked faster, obsessed with how Angie bit her lip—like she only did with Peggy. "Even if, somehow, we find a worse rathole than this place to live in."

Angie came, her body burning, her moans pained, and as she came the tears started. Sobs rolling out her throat, water streaming down her eyes, pulling into Dottie's embrace but Dottie wouldn't have her. She maneuvered Angie down, into her lap, put her hand on the back of Angie's head to keep her there.

"Come on now," Dottie said, spying herself in the mirror. Like a photograph. Caption: Angie Martinelli and wife. "Show your wife how much you love her."

Dottie took far more pleasure in the sobs droning against her cunt than she did in Angie's feeble attempts at cunnilingus.


	7. Chapter 7

The ceiling fan artfully swirled the room's air, just enough to make it buzz over the cool sheets like dropping ice in a cold drink, pushing Peggy further into Steve, his warmth, his embrace. He tightened his grip on her, pulled the comforter up her body, and for the first time since she'd joined the SSR Peggy remembered what safety felt like.

It was like a dream.

"There was so much I wanted to tell you." She kissed him. "I felt so cheated, not having the time." She kissed him. "Now we have all the time in the world. I can tell you everything. I can say it over and over again."

She kissed him. She kissed him. She kissed him. She kissed him.

"You think I didn't know?" he asked her, when she'd stopped to breathe. "I've never been accused of being a genius, but I'm not blind either."

"I still want to say them."

"No, you don't. You just don't want them unsaid."

A thought struck her out of nowhere, like a bee's sting. Her alarm clock. She should turn it off, so she wouldn't awaken early. She wanted to spend as much time as possible in Steve's arms, sleep in with him, wake up only when her psyche had absorbed as much of his gentle warmth as possible.

She reached for the alarm and it was there. That was the confusing thing. She'd been in the barracks, right? The women's quarters, where she'd stayed during basic training, when she'd gotten to know him best. She still valued her insight into the man he'd been before his 'promotion,' but during that time, she'd been segregated from the officers and enlisted men, in a women's quarters with only a few nurses and secretaries for company. There'd been no alarm clock. She woke when the bugle sounded, like everyone else.

But she wasn't in the barracks. She thought she'd been, but she was in her apartment in the Griffith. It was 1946. And Steve was with her.

And why wouldn't he be? Howard had found him, just like he'd said he would. Steve had come back to her. Just like she'd known he would. Just like she'd dreamed.

"There's that word again," Steve said.

"After what we just did? Believe you me, Captain Rogers, if I could do that to myself, I would. However unladylike it is."

"Peggy…"

"Shush. Just shush." She laid her hand on his brow. It was there, _he _was there, the skin warm and soft, the hair seeming to caress her back when she touched it, the eyes so alive when they found hers, not burning, not piercing, but with an innate sense of _there_ness. They looked precisely where they meant to. And he was looking at her when he thought he'd never see her again. "I'm tired. I'm so bloody tired and I want to rest and I want to wake and you're still here, I'm not _alone_—"

"You've been resting," he said, gently chiding. "And when you wake up, I'll be there. The same way I'm here now."

"No. It's not the same. Your smile. I can't remember your smile sometimes. After Bucky died, I tried to cheer you up—I can't remember if I did."

He sighed. The weight of the world was on his shoulders and she'd put it there. And it'd crushed him. "I'm not here, Peggy. Not in the way you want me to be."

"Then how the devil are you here?"

"Because there's a part of me that's in you. You gave it to me in the first place. It knows, _you _know, that if Steve were here right now, he'd want you to wake up. There's a reason he didn't say those things. Those words you wanted to be his—he couldn't claim them. And they're someone else's now. You worry you'll lose her too, so you remember how you once felt, retrace old scars—"

"Stop it."

"You don't want me to stop. Remembering how happy you were isn't being happy. And he'd want you to be happy." He barely sounded like himself anymore. He sounded like her. Ruthless, unbending, unyielding—hateful. Hateful bitch who kept everyone out and survived and she hated surviving, so much, she hated being left holding the pieces when another fire had gone out, more dust settled, more dead buried—

He was himself again. It was in the way he looked at her. Always saying goodbye. "You're an SSR agent, Peggy. The last line of defense. If they get past you, they get to the American people. They get to Angie. Don't let them. Don't worry about what you might've said. Just say what you feel now."

It wasn't him. It never had been. Just a dream. A good dream. But she was asleep. "I'm trying. I am trying. I don't think she knows, though. Not really."

"So keep telling her."

Peggy focused. Not on Steve. On Angie.

She'd already said her goodbyes.


	8. Chapter 8

Peggy didn't know what she would say. All she knew was that Angie could talk enough for both of them. She knocked on the door and nothing happened. Fear flickered through Peggy. How long had she been gone? Could someone have taken Angie, hurt her—even just been in a car accident with her? Peggy knew how fast someone could just be ripped away. They were as light and fragile as spider-webs.

She heard a door rattling open behind her: her own. Turned and Peggy was there, a different woman, no make-up, eyes red from crying, wearing a nightgown she must've been in for a few days from the sweat soaked into it. She saw Peggy and she just seemed to break further, eyes widening, flooding, cracked lips parting and Peggy went to her and she petted her hair and she took her inside so it was just them, no one else, nobody that could hurt either of them.

"It's okay, Angie, I'm here, _I'm here—"_

Angie's words bled out of her, a boil that'd finally been lanced—festering inside her for days. "You wrote a letter, you left, you said you didn't want to be with me anymore."

"They made me write that letter. I didn't want to, they forced me—_"_

Angie flailed at Peggy, not hearing her, wanting to hear her. Tiny fists banging against Peggy, Peggy gathering her in her arms, Angie fighting back more like a seizure, giving into Peggy's embrace even when she was squirming with screams and fingernails and knees, almost wanting to rip out whatever it was in Peggy that was hurting her so much and felt so good. Peggy just held her tighter. Angie became a dead weight, sinking to the floor and Peggy following with her, dragging Angie into her lap and hugging her like she was trying to protect her from a hail of bullets.

"It's not disgusting!" Angie screamed into Peggy's shoulder. "You said it was disgusting and it's not, it wasn't, it's not!"

"I didn't mean any of those things, I love you."

Angie's mouth was open in a scream that hackled and died in her throat, nothing in there but a tight knot of pain that couldn't begin to unravel into anything vocal. She shook. Her sobs dying inside her. Peggy stilled them, petting her back, the line of her spine.

"I love you. I love you, Angie. I love everything about you and I love every word out of your mouth and I love your singing and your acting and your cooking and... you're everything. You're all that's left in the world that I care about and I care so much, I promise you, I care about you more than I ever thought I could."

Angie didn't tell Peggy to keep going, but the way she clung to Angie, breathing shakily, Peggy could tell she was gaining strength from every word.

"I love you. I love your hair. I love your shade of lipstick. I love the exact way your eyelashes curl. I love getting to rub your feet after you spend all day waitressing, I love taking baths with you, I love how you know a million things about lard, I love you, I just love you."

And just when Peggy thought Angie was finally calm, she stared shaking all over again. She pulled at Peggy's hair, her clothes, trying to get something from her before she finally stopped looking. "I cheated on you."

Peggy didn't say anything. She knew how to take a hit. But Angie knew her, she knew how Peggy stiffened, and she spoke.

"Dottie came to me, she told me you had left, and then she pretended to be you, I mean, I was so confused and she was so like you and she made sense—"

"Dottie was in on it." Peggy could make the words into things that were sane. She could force them to not be screaming. "She's a very sick woman and she gets some satisfaction out of... almost being me. It's okay. It's not your fault. She used you."

Angie's hands hung by her sides. She didn't know where to put them. "She tricked me. She tricked me."

"It's alright." Peggy could make her believe it.

"She _lied to me. _I listened to her. You loved me and I... you were in trouble and I was fucking someone..."

"You couldn't have known."

Angie pushed Peggy away. Her eyes were burning as she stared into her. Her hands finally found a place, locking together in a plea. "You have to punish me, you have to punish me for what I did, you have to make me pay for being such a terrible person..."

"No, no, Angie, you're a good person."

"You have to punish me." Angie pulled her nightclothes away from herself and Peggy felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to help her. They seemed like just one more thing causing Angie distress. "I have to be punished!"

Peggy wanted to keep telling her no. Keep telling Angie how much she loved her and didn't care about her sins and didn't blame her for anything, but looking in Angie's eyes, Peggy knew she wouldn't listen. Angie felt too much shame to place it all on Dottie's shoulders. Too much for Angie to be able to forgive herself. She needed Peggy to do it for her, and she wouldn't believe Peggy's words. Only her deeds.

"Alright, Angie," Peggy said at last. "I'll punish you."


	9. Chapter 9

Mistress Peggy told her to strip and Angie did, immediately, without question. Her clothes felt horrid anyway. As soon as Mistress Peggy eyed them, Angie had known they wouldn't do, and they'd felt dirty and overwarm and ugly. Her bare skin felt so much better. She knew it pleased Mistress Peggy.

Mistress Peggy told her to kneel next. Angie did, wondering if Mistress Peggy would have her kiss her, taste her, like she had Dottie NO. NO. She would kneel, all she would do was kneel. She knew Mistress Peggy hadn't wanted her to do that with Dottie, she hadn't wanted to either (_so why had she done it) _and now she would only do what Mistress Peggy wanted.

Her hands were bound behind her back. Her ankles were held by a spreader bar, forcing her to kneel with her knees apart. Every rope felt good; the metal cuffs around her calves were right.

Then Peggy went around her apartment, finding a framed picture on the mantelpiece. Her and Angie, snapped by a stranger when they'd visited the Statue of Liberty. Peggy picked it up and carried it to the kneeling, naked Angie.

"Does this mean anything to you?" Her voice was so soft, not like Mistress Peggy's at all, more like the other Peggy—the one that Angie had hurt, that she'd betrayed…

"It means so much to me, Mistress, I'm so sorry…"

Peggy crouched down, putting the picture face-up between Angie's spread knees. Angie keened. She just needed Peggy to hit her, hurt her. That was what would make her feel better. The ropes and the nakedness were fine, but that would be _perfect_.

"Please punish me?"

"I'm giving you what you deserve," Peggy said.

Then she left Angie, and Angie knew why. She was too broken to even punish, too bad to ever fix, too disgusting for her beautiful Mistress. Peggy walked into the next room, the little kitchen of Angie's little apartment. A cabinet squeaked open; the tap flowed. Peggy returned with a tall glass of cool water. She crouched in front of Angie and Angie could've cried… she was being given a second chance.

"Drink this," Peggy said, and held the glass to Angie's mouth. Angie eagerly drank as Peggy tilted it up, the water flowing between her lips and right down her throat.

Then Peggy put the empty glass down next to the picture frame and got up. She turned on the radio. She found the evening paper on the kitchen table and sat down to read it, as Angie knelt there, naked, tied, feeling the chill of the water that had gone down her throat fade.

The radio played. Peggy turned the pages of her paper. Angie stayed in place, trying to be as still as possible. She listened to the music, wishing it weren't so loud—maybe Peggy would give her an order and she wouldn't hear it. But Peggy never spoke. The radio went from one song to another, all of it just static to Angie, something between her and what Peggy had to say to her.

Finally, Peggy finished her paper. It'd been a good forty-five minutes—she'd done the crossword puzzle. She stood, folding the paper back up, going to the waste bin to dump it, then returning to Angie. Angie stared up at her, trying to convey in her obedient silence, with only her red-rimmed eyes, how sorry she was, how she was worthless and pathetic and crude and she _knew it, _knew she wasn't worthy of Peggy…

Peggy bent down, interrupting Angie's train of thought as she saw briefly down the cleavage of Peggy's blouse—something else she didn't deserve and something else that wasn't _punishment_—she picked up the glass and returned to the kitchen. A squeak as she twisted the dial, then the tap ran. Sloshing water as it filled the glass. Peggy returned. A full glass of cool, clear water.

"Drink," Peggy said, and held the glass to Angie's mouth. Angie drank, though not very fast—she was not thirsty and she could feel the first tingling need to urinate. And though she obeyed, it wasn't fast enough for Peggy's liking. She tipped the glass at a sharper angle, forcing Angie to drink faster and still making water spill onto Angie's face, leaving her sputtering.

Peggy waited for her to finish, then used her sleeve to wipe Angie's chin and jaw. Then she left again. Angie could've sobbed, sure she had displeased Peggy. Peggy totally ignored her, going to Angie's small bookcase, picking out a lurid paperback—Angie felt so embarrassed—then returned to her chair and cracking it open. The radio droned on; it sounded distorted to Angie's ears, _wrong. _So wrong not to be Peggy's voice.

As the pages turned—all Angie could think about were Peggy's slender fingers, holding that dumb book as they'd once held Angie—Angie felt her need to pee grow. The pressure in her belly began as a small finger pressing on her from within, then grew, pushing insistently at her urethra.

She tried to concentrate on Peggy's fingers, the pages she was turning—the book too far away for her to read. She just had to kneel there and think about how much she wanted Peggy, how she needed her, and still her eyes wandered to the bathroom. She could ignore her aching knees and the soreness in her shoulders from her arms being tied in place, but the bathroom… if she could just have one minute to relieve herself…

Peggy seemed to sense her fraying. She laid the book down on the arm of her chair and rose. Going back to Angie.

Angie knew she shouldn't speak out of turn, but—"Mistress, may I use the bathroom?" she asked, immediately biting her lip after.

Peggy shook her head. "No. You have to stay there. It's only been two hours."

Angie nodded obediently. Yes. Of course.

Peggy left. Taking the empty glass with her. She disappeared into the kitchen. "But if you have to piss, go right ahead."

The sound of the tap turning on was like a slap to the face. The flowing water resonated in Angie's full belly and when she jittered and fidgeted, trying to reorient herself so the need wasn't so pressing, she could hear the water sloshing around inside her.

Peggy returned. Her glass full. "Drink," she said once more as she put the cool cusp of the glass to Angie's lips. Tilted it. The water gathering at Angie's teeth, prying at them, until Angie opened her mouth and let the water inside. She couldn't make herself swallow for a moment, and her body was ripped by a sob as the water overflowed her open mouth, running down her naked body, over her sensitive nipples. She made herself swallow, swallow, swallow. Her bladder screamed at her as more water escaped from her mouth—so hard to try to swallow it when she was also desperately holding in her urine.

Now Peggy left, without a sound of either satisfaction or displeasure. She returned to her chair, returned to her book, and Angie looked down desperately at the picture between her knees. Miraculously, none of the water she'd spilled had fallen on it. It was still perfect—clear, unbroken glass over Angie and Peggy, best friends, partners, lovers, standing together in their perfect love for each other.

The seconds dragged on, the steady push on her bladder seeming to grow firmer and firmer, but she wouldn't pee, she wouldn't! Not in front of Peggy, not with that beautiful photograph right underneath her. She let herself move around. She let herself whimper. Anything so long as she didn't pee. She felt Peggy's eyes on her; her mistress turning away from her book to look over at Angie. Angie knew from the look in her eyes how red her face must be.

Peggy set the book down. She got up. She walked next to Angie. Stood over her. "You have to pee, Angie. You must."

"I need… bathroom," Angie said, shocked and ashamed of how her voice cracked.

"No. Right here. Right now."

Angie shook her head. "Take the picture away—I don't wanna—don't wanna—"

Peggy knelt down across her. She reached out gently, stroking Angie's thighs efficiently but without relish. Angie moaned—so good to be touched, to feel anything but the hardwood under her knees and the ropes around her wrists—but it was breaking her concentration, keeping her from focusing on holding her urine in.

"It's alright, Angie. You don't have to. Just let go." Peggy's hands moved up to the sides of Angie's abdomen, holding her so wonderfully, her thumbs stroking at Angie's stomach. But Angie's bladder was so full and she had to try so hard to keep it from emptying and so as much as she wanted Peggy's touch, she squirmed away from it. Tried to. Peggy wouldn't let her go. Her hands kept their firm grip. Her thumbs kept caressing Angie, such a subtle touch, so insubstantial, but her concentration was cracking, shattering…

"Please, no—" Angie moaned, feeling herself go but refusing to believe it—she could still get to the bathroom if Peggy would just let her, would just—"It's too much, you're too much…"

Through the coolness of her nudity and the water that'd spilled on her, Angie felt the warm rush of urine escaping her, running down her thighs, onto the floor—onto the picture of them together. She sobbed, humiliation mingling with relief, and Peggy held her as she just kept _going, _she couldn't stop, not until she was kneeling in a puddle of her own shame.

"Why'd you do that?" Peggy asked, again not Angie's mistress, but her everything. Best friend. Lover. Wife.

Angie cried, shaking her head, the hateful warmth not leaving her thighs and legs. "Because I'm awful! I'm just a horrible… a waste of space… I'm so sorry, Peg…"

"You did it because I forced you to," Peggy said, easily reaching behind Angie and undoing her bonds. The spreader bar was next. "I made you kneel here. I put the picture under you. I made you drink. I wouldn't let you use the bathroom."

"No, no, I should've—I should've held it in—"

Peggy forced Angie to look at her. "I wasn't going to let you go. Not until you'd urinated. It's not your fault, Angie. You had no choice. I didn't leave you a choice, and neither did Dottie."

Angie only cried harder, shaking her head like she could throw herself out of her own skull, escape from behind the eyes of what a horrible person she was. "I should've been stronger. For you. She had you prisoner and I believed you would—if I had only known, I could've helped—"

"You could've been killed, just as easily. You had no way of knowing Dottie wasn't exactly who she said she was, and no way of knowing that letter wasn't real. She's a master manipulator, Angie. She's trained to be. Now, do you trust me?"

Angie forced herself to nod, even if she wanted to keep shaking her head, keep denying the kind words she didn't deserve. "I trust you."

"And do you love me?"

Angie ground to a halt. "I don't deserve—"

"_Do you love me?"_

More tears. She couldn't stop their flow any more than she could anything else. "Yes."

"Then when I say I don't hold you accountable—that I don't blame you for anything that happened—will you accept that? Or do you think I'm wrong?"

Angie just sniffled. Peggy just looked at her, seeing that she'd pushed hard enough. She picked Angie up, her arms and legs limp and unresponsive, but still trying to go along with Peggy as she helped her to the bathroom. To the tub. Peggy turned the showerhead on and let Angie lie under the spray, the heat of her shame replaced with warm, soothing water in all her aches and dirtiness. Then Peggy picked up a towel and left. Mopped up the urine, wiped off the picture. Brought it into the bathroom and wetted another towel, wiping the glass off, then drying it. She showed it to Angie.

"See? It's fine. It's fine."

Angie sobbed in earnest, limbs wrapping in on herself, and Peggy climbed into the tub with her, holding her as the tears had their way with her. Eventually, she brushed Angie off with a washcloth. The tears still came. Peggy put the plug in, changed the water from the showerhead to the faucet, filling the tub with warm, clean water. She held Angie—fully dressed, door open—as the water continued to soothe her. To leave no doubt that she was clean of all sin and regrets.

"You still want me?" Angie asked at last, her voice hoarse from the tears, but no longer shaking with them.

"Always."

"Then I guess… I guess I can't be that bad."

"No. Not bad at all."

* * *

After the water grew cold, Angie let Peggy dry her off. She collapsed atop the bed and slept soundly, only staying awake long enough to feel Peggy's hand stroking her back as she drifted off. The towels went into the washing machine, followed by Peggy's wet clothes.

The picture went back up on the mantel, to watch over the two women as Peggy climbed into bed with Angie. Even in her sleep, Angie nestled against Peggy. And finally, Peggy too felt right.


End file.
